IN MANY WAYS, THIS, the author's first novel -- "The
Other Half" in English -- displays a natural progression following
her O baile das feias (1994) and Grandes peixes vorazes (1997), both of
which were well-received short-story collections. After all, A outra
metade, too, re-creates the crisis-ridden, self-doubting, middle-class
Zona Sul scene, not all that dissimilar from such earlier literary
arrivals as Carlos Heitor Cony, Esdras do Nascimento, and, of course,
Clarice.

Mambrini's storyline too is at once the day-to-day lifestyle
of largely feminine figures, inexorably punctuated by extraordinary
concerns. Thus, for example, "The Other Half" goes about
dealing with the growing imbalance between the cultivated normalcy long
a part of narrator-protagonist Lilian's persona and the outside
forces challenging her comforting routine. It is precisely this
collision of social values and pressures from both outside and in, from
past and present, even from reality and fantasy, as well as the dual
nature of the novel's structure, which makes for credible dynamics.

Lilian, then, is yet another still-attractive, quintessential
Bovary-Think-Alike, indeed, a middle-aged wife and mother whose grasp on
life hardly radiates confidence. Such insecurity centers on her evolving
roles, particularly that from passive participant to active player. Hers
is a loosely ordered psychological metamorphosis, built both on
truncated as well as copious traditional dialogue, and further held
together by Lilian's interior monologue.

At story's end (there is even a de facto epilogue),
Lilian's eleventh-hour liberating conversation is complete, as
reflected throughout the narrative, in a combination of personified
options open to her, most important of which is her unconscious
emulation of Vera, her newly rediscovered best friend and catalyst.
Vera, in fact, is the novel's prodigal daughter, bringing about
anti-heroine Lilian's final willingness both to remain alone in Rio
and possibly to see more of the artist and Don Juanish Julio Dalori,
behind husband Fabio's back. These male figures, in turn, like the
other half-dozen men present -- most notably, the handsome Argentine
philanderer Mario and Lilian's obsessive memory of long-deceased
beau, Teo -- prove to be familiar cliches whose deliberate shallowness
detracts little from Lilian's overpowering characterization. (A
outra metade is, after all, a psychological novel.).

Another key manifestation of the narrator's break with the
past goes right down to the diminished use of flashback. Furthermore,
Lilian's thoughts become increasingly monopolized by, and analogous
to, the surrounding atmosphere. For one thing, buzz words -- here, such
intangibles (and/or derivatives) as lembrar, banal, panico, and
imaginacao -- are strewn all along the protagonist's metonymic road
back. The suggestion is of Brazil's maddening urban chaos, just as,
in the narrative, its chronological hop-scotching and spontaneity of
dialogue point to inner confusion regarding her mental state. At the
other end, concrete symbols such as the highly significant and
reappearing hourglass, as well as timeless cockroaches, both underline
and contrast the precarious nature of humankind's day-to-day.

All in all, A outra metade is a worthwhile and entertaining
rendering of what has rightly come to be known as compensatory fantasy,
popularized early on by Balzac and still going strong.

Malcolm Silverman
San Diego State University

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